Afterglow

"KILLER"

"Gosh, please speak english." Chad sighs.

"Okay. Remember the Stab movie that came out last year?" Mindy stands up.

"Oh, yeah! The one with the Knives Out guy directed, right?" Liv asks. "I actually really liked that one."

"Of course you did. You have terrible taste." Mindy rolls her eyes. I begin laughing, before Amber nudges my shoulder. I immediately stop laughing, clearing my throat.

"I hate you both." Liv looks and me then Mindy.

"The point is, the hard-core Stab fans hated it. You go on 4chan and dreadit, all they're talking about is how Stab right pissed on their childhoods. How they crammed in social commentary just to elevated. How the main character a Mary Sue!" Mindy explains to us.

"What's a Mary Sue?" Richie asks, looking around for answers.

"You really don't wanna know." Wes says.

"What's wrong with elevated horror? I mean—Jordan Peele fucking rules." Amber speaks up.

"Uh, obviously, but that's not Stab. Real Stab movies are meta slasher whodunits, full stop." Mindy replies to her.

"Come on—it's just a movie." Sam says.

"No, it's not. I know that better than anyone.." I trail off.

"To some people, the original is their favorite thing in the world. The movie that made them love horror. That Mom or Dad showed them when they were ten. That bonded them together. And God help anyone, who slightly fucks with that special memory. Who makes a movie they think disrespects it. It sounds like our killer is writing his own version of Stab eight, but doing it as a requel!"

"Which is..?" Dewey looks at Mindy confused.

"See, you can't just reboot a franchise from scratch anymore. The fans won't stand for it. Black Christmas, Child's Play, Flatliners, that shit doesn't work. But you can't just do a straight sequel, either. You gotta build something new. But not too new, or the internet goes bug-fucking nuts. Its gotta be part of an ongoing story line, even if the story shouldn't have been ongoing in the first place. New main characters, yes, but supported by and related to legacy characters. Not quite a reboot, not quite a sequel. Like the new halloween, Saw, Terminator, Jurassic Park, Ghostbusters, fuck, even Star Wars! It always, always goes back to the original!" Mindy holds up the OG Stab movie DVD.

"Are you telling me that I'm caught in the middle of fan-fucking-fiction?" Sam asks.

"Not just in the middle, Sam. You are the star."

"So, not to put too fine a point on it, but, according to the requel rules.." Liv sighs. "Who's next?"

"Going by the pattern..whoever it is has to be connected to someone that came before." Awkward tension fills the room.

"I'm starting to regret coming here." Dewey mutters.

"Jeez, my mom was a character in one of them." Wes speaks up.

"No one cares about the shitty inferior sequels, Wes. You're safe. With Randy as me and Chads uncle, and Y/n as Sidneys niece we are absolutely screwed." Mindy smiles at us. Me and Chad look at each other as our face drops.

"Woah—woah, what?" I sit up.

"Or you're the killer and this whole elaborate monologue is just to cover your tracks." Richie laughs.

"I think it's pretty obvious who the killers are at this point." Mindy scoffs.

"Who?" Sam asks.

"Y/n, and you—"

"Woah. Hold up—hold on. Im not a killer—I—"

"Y/n would never hurt anyone, let alone my best-friend." Amber speaks up for me.

"Amber, c'mon. Daughter of Roman Bridger..? Niece of Sidney Prescott? She's got killer written all over her!" Wes shouts, then stands up.

"Let's calm down—" Liv sits up, Chad as well.

"Or maybe you are, Wes! You have no girlfriend, no anyone. No wonder why your dad left you." Amber stands up getting in his face. "Don't you ever tall about Y/n like that again!" I wrap my arms around Ambers waist pulling her.

"Guys—! Guys!" Mindy puts Wes farther away from Amber.

"Or what?" Wes scoffs. Amber shoves wes onto Mindys floor, everyone know standing up. We all try to separate them.

"Amber—calm down!" Liv tells her.

"He's a fucking asshole! And you're only mean because Tara doesn't fucking like you back!" Amber says, before storming out of Mindys and Chads house. Once she leaves it falls silent.

"Um.." Mindy looks down.

"Im not the killer, guys. Just because Im his daughter—alright? I mean it. I've went through my whole life being stared at cause of my last name. I'm not the killer." I explain to them.

"Fuck this." Sam gets up running to the car.

"Sam—Sam!" Richie runs after her.

"Im gonna—go find Amber." I tell them. They all nod.

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